


A Rose on the Couch aka I Seem to Have Mislaid My 'I's

by BardicRaven



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Gen, Identity, Identity Issues, Loss of Identity, Madness, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Names, Survivor Guilt, what's in a name?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 02:22:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardicRaven/pseuds/BardicRaven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What's in a name?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Rose on the Couch aka I Seem to Have Mislaid My 'I's

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sarcasticsra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcasticsra/gifts).



> (Universe note – Sidney was introduced as Milton the first time he appeared on M*A*S*H [by Radar in the epi "Radar's Report"], then was known as Sidney ever after. Trying to reconcile the version issues, it came to me that Milton could have been his first name, but one he didn't like and never used unless forced. Supported by IMDb? No. Supported by canon? Yes. So was it a slip of the tongue or the pen? You decide. :-D)
> 
> AN – Thank you for bringing to my attention my misspelling of 'Sidney'. For some reason I seem to be having 'y's on the brain of late. Sorry about that.

It shouldn't have bothered him and certainly didn't surprise him. After all, Milton WAS his first name, and the Army, in the literal way it had, automatically took it to be the name he would go by. Just because he hated the name and never used it didn't matter. It bucked the pattern, and that was not tolerated. Fortunately, he was in a position to be Major Freedman or Major to most people and the others were politely asked to call him Sidney. Problem solved.

 

But still, it had rankled, until he'd gotten used to it. Part of him wanted to protest the inadvertent reassignment to another individual, even though his head told him it wouldn't make a difference.

 

And after all, really, what's in a name? Just something to kinda, sorta differentiate you from all the other two-and-a-half billion people on the planet. Or at least to make a start at doing so.

 

The people of the 4077th made the mistake too, the first time he came, to interview Klinger for the first of what would become many times. Between that interview and the poker game he'd subsequently been invited to, he'd asked them to call him Sidney, and thankfully, it had stuck.

 

And Sidney he was ever after, through rain and sleet and snow and sun, through psychosis and depression and suicide in all its gory forms. Through poker games that lasted for days and a session in the OR that seemed to last for an eternity. Through Hawkeye fearing he was going crazy to Potter fearing he was done. He was there, counseling, cajoling, conspiring through all of that and more.

 

What's in a name? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps everything. There are those who say a name defines you, molds you far beyond being a simple alternative to “Hey, you!”. That a 'Steve' will act one way, and a 'Keith' will act another.

 

How does a Sidney react? He wondered that from time to time. Was he acting in accordance to his own wishes, or merely playing a part dictated by realms of Sidneys before him? Or would that be Miltons? Did it matter what order your names came in? Or was the meaning dictated by which one you used?

 

But then, life on the front lines didn't often offer much time for introspection. Though he was blessed that most of the front lines he faced were metaphorical rather than literal, it didn't change the need, the desperate need for the kind of help he could provide. The blank, broken, raging, lost faces – all of them needed him, needed his talents, his skills, whatever he chose to call himself.

 

Sometimes, seeing the wounds both physical and those less tangible, history weighed heavily on him. His country had been a war at long time now. Off and on, but never as off as could be hoped. It was starting to feel familiar, this state-of-war, almost as familiar as his name. Milton, Sidney, both drawn from his family's past, given to this son in the present.

 

History.

 

And history was what he dealt with. Rewriting history. Rewritten history. It came to much the same thing in the end – a person irrevocably changed from the way he was before.

 

Like now. Like Hawkeye. Given to him to fix, to uncover the rewritten history that held him a raging prisoner, then help him to rewrite it into something he could live with.

 

What was in a name indeed?

 

In some ways, the names didn't matter. Child or chicken, death was death. One could argue the semantics of relative value all one liked; it didn't change what had happened on that night – and why.

 

He knew the true story of course. He'd interviewed those who'd been with Hawkeye that fateful night. He knew of the fear, the quiet terror of the hunted, the desperate choice made by a mother who'd felt she'd had no choice. He knew what had happened – now he had to help Hawkeye know it too. And to find some way to bear the unbearable.

 

So maybe a name didn't matter. Or maybe it did. But what was important now was to try to help Hawkeye put himself together again from the shattered eggshell fragments that were left.

 

Then there would be time for the debating of names and values and the versions of history that we create to get through our days and our lives.

 

But for now... Sidney squared his shoulders and knocked softly on the door. No response. It didn't matter – he hadn't really been expecting one anyway. Talking was still a lifetime away. He unlocked the door and went in.

 

“Hawkeye?”

 

_What's in a name?_

 


End file.
